Pigeon arrested? What one pigeon can tell about the brutality of life under the Islamic State

Spy pigeon caught in Pakistan may be escaped bird from massacred pigeon breeders

A strange story has come out of India where a pigeon was arrested and jailed on suspicion of being a spy for the Islamic State.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The pigeon was found by a 14-year-old boy in the village of Manwal, a little more than two miles from the border with Pakistan in Punjab province. It had a wire on its body and a message stamped to its tail.

The boy saw the message, which in Urdu reads "Tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal" and also had several numbers on it. Immediately the boy took the pigeon to officers, who agreed the feathered spy was suspicious and arrested it.

The bird was taken to the city of Pathankot where it was x-rayed at a local veterinary hospital.

Despite suspicions about the birds origins Pathankot's senior superintendent of police, Rakesh Kaushal, said: "Nothing adverse has been found, but we have kept the bird in our custody."

Where did the pigeon come from? Well an incident that happened earlier this year may shed light on the mystery.

In early 2015, Islamic State fighters captured 15 pigeon breeders in the province of Diyala in eastern Iraq, following a decision made that keeping and training birds is against Islam. The 15 pigeon breeders were all young men, between the ages of 16 and 22.

Pigeon breeding is a popular hobby in Iraq, but extremist Muslims do not like the hobby because they claim it distracts people from worshiping Allah.

Abu Abdullah, the father of one of the breeders, relayed what happened to him during an interview with NBC News, when six gunmen stormed his home.

"I asked them why and they said: 'He is not following the real Islam, he must be punished for being a pigeon breeder. This habit is taking him away from worshiping Allah.' I begged them again to know where are they taking him, what are they going to do to him. They said he is going to be taken to be judged according to the Islamic Sharia."

"After they took his son, the gunmen rounded up the pigeons and began killing them."

"We are helpless and hopeless. I know they will kill him sooner or later. I'm waiting for someone to tell me he was killed, and the only thing I will do is take his body and bury it."

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